ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Discovery Institute

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View of the sunset on the savannah of Nairobi

Luskin and Miller Share Highlights of Recent African Speaking Tour

Is there interest and support for intelligent design in other countries besides the United States? As today's interview will show, the answer to that question is a resounding yes! On this ID The Future, geologist and attorney Casey Luskin and physicist Brian Miller talk with host Andrew McDiarmid about their recent speaking trip to South Africa and Kenya. Accompanied by historian Richard Weikart for portions of it, the trio gave a total of 65 lectures to over 4,000 people on 7 university campuses and other locations. The response was inspiring. As Luskin puts it in his blog post detailing the trip, support for intelligent design is burning brightly across the continent of Africa. Tune in to learn more about this remarkable experience. Read More ›
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Angry teacher in retro style with pointer on blackboard

How a Teacher Wrecked Biology for Me, and How I Got Past It

On today’s ID the Future, Tom Gilson, a writer and editor for The Stream, shares his experiences in high school biology. Important mysteries (i.e., major problems) with evolutionary theory were hurried past and papered over, and yet his biology teacher could take an entire class period to tell Charles Darwin’s life story, and then repeat the same class, virtually verbatim, five more times that same semester. Tune in to hear how the class put Tom Gilson off of biology, but how he now finds the subject fascinating, thanks to the work of intelligent design researchers and the larger community of life scientists. Gilson’s commentary is taken from, and builds on, a recent essay of his, available at Evolution News.

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portrait of young man gymnasts

Human Skeletal Joints—Engineering Masterpieces, Pt. 2

Today’s ID the Future completes a talk by award-winning British engineer Stuart Burgess, who explains how the human ankle and wrist joints offer powerful evidence of engineering genius. Burgess is answering evolutionist Nathan Lents, who has argued that human joints are badly designed and, therefore, evidence against intelligent design and for Darwinian evolution’s blind trial-and-error process. According to Burgess, Lents ignores—and seems to be ignorant of—the many ingeniously engineered features of our joints, leading Lents to make easily refuted claims. For example, Lents says an ankle with fused bones would be a superior design to a healthy human ankle. Not if the person hopes to play squash or tackle any number of other activities that require the suppleness and responsiveness of the human ankle, Burgess notes. Burgess’s lecture was taped at the 2022 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith in the greater Philadelphia area. The conference was jointly sponsored by Westminster Theological Seminary and Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

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A Plea to Parents: Don’t “Butt Out” of Your Kids’ Education

On today’s ID the Future, host Robert Crowther sits down with writer Andrew McDiarmid to discuss his recent New York Post article, “Word to the Wise: Progressives Forget that Parents are in Charge of Kids’ Education.” The two discuss recent dustups in the news in which parents were told to butt out of the public education of their children. This is profoundly wrongheaded and for a variety of reasons, McDiarmid argues. McDiarmid, a Discovery Institute senior fellow, advocates for greater parental involvement, rather than less, and he and Crowther then apply the principle to the narrower question of how evolution is taught in the public high schools. In many districts evolutionary theory is taught as unquestionable dogma, with none of the theory’s weaknesses presented, and no attempt to encourage critical inquiry into the matter. Parents, students, and education leaders should never settle for this, McDiarmid says. He and Crowther wrap up their conversation by pointing listeners to several quality educational resources, many of them online, to help parents, students, and educators.

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Is Darwinism a Theory in Crisis?

Today’s ID the Future spotlights The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, and specifically, an essay in the new anthology by biologist Jonathan Wells, “Is Darwinism a Theory in Crisis?” As Wells and host Casey Luskin note, the essay title alludes to philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn’s influential 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn argued there that if one studies the history of scientific revolutions, one finds that when the scientific evidence has begun to turn against a dominant scientific paradigm—when its days are numbered— its adherents do not simply concede defeat. Instead they use all their institutional power to suppress dissent and punish proponents of any competing paradigm. This is the period of crisis, which can last for years and even decades. Wells contends that modern evolutionary theory is a current instance of a dominant paradigm in crisis. He briefly makes the case in this episode, and at greater length in his essay, which appears in the newly released anthology from Harvest House Publishers, edited by William Dembski, Casey Luskin, and Joseph Holden. Find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

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Jay Richards on When to Doubt the Scientific ‘Consensus’

On this episode of ID the Future, hear Jay Richards’ recent talk given at a Washington D.C. event entitled “March for Science or March for Scientism? Understanding the Real Threats to Science in America.”

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Media Matters Misconstrues Tennessee’s Academic Freedom Law

On this episode of ID the Future, David Boze addresses the false claims of Media Matters, a popular leftist website that has framed the new Tennessee academic freedom law as a “slickly crafted proposal to allow religion in the science classroom” while ignoring the actual content of the law. In similar fashion, Media Matters has also disregarded public documents while making false assertions against the Discovery Institute. Listen in as Boze responds to these wrongful attacks and explains why they’re being waged.

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